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curl-6 said:2006-2007 with Gears of War, COD4, and Halo 3. In other words, it's all the Xbox 360's fault. ;)

I started looking into that just now and found a pretty interesting thing.

You got the sense the pre-Xbox, 'gamers as bros' was a smaller subculture within the nerdy, whimsical hobby of games. Over two console generations, a highly cynical marketing team spent billions with no hope of immediate payback to shift the market. In an act of brilliant jujitsu, Nintendo was slandered as a kids platform, their historical strength turned against them. Xbox put machismo, ultra-violence and chimpboys with backwards caps in the paid spotlight. Wedge, wedge, wedge. Gamers were handed a pre-packaged group identity via the propaganda machine of a mega corporation. For those raised post-Xbox, Microsoft was an unquestioned Mecca of modern gaming culture. Dude. They made Halo.

when the introduction of sex, violence and anything labled "cool and mature" showed up is when gaming become more of a mainstream culture among dude bros who will bash games like super mario or cartoon games because they are not considered "hardcore"